SAP's ambitions are broader, with the intent of eventually covering all 25 industries it now serves, according to the announcement.

A new Industry Cloud organization will be led by SAP executive Simon Paris. "Working in industries with highly specialized challenges, we will focus on our customers' most relevant business problems and then work creatively and collaboratively to develop industry cloud solutions," Paris said in a statement.

SAP has already made some steps in the direction of industry-specific cloud services. Monday's announcement cited a preconfigured ERP (enterprise resource planning) suite for chemical companies; the Circular Authority for Insurance application; and the use of its Hana in-memory computing platform by a number of health care startups.

While the announcement may amount to SAP putting a stake in the ground, it's an important one for the company to make, according to one observer.

"I think it's high time they did this," said analyst Ray Wang, founder and chairman of Constellation Research. "Customers are turning to other vendors in the cloud like Veeva for pharma, Accela for public sector and others."